No one understands what my company does. How do I fix this?
If no one understands, you're explaining what you built instead of what it changes. Lead with the problem and the outcome, not the mechanism.
The curse of knowledge
You know every detail of your product, your market, and your vision. That knowledge makes it nearly impossible to explain what you do simply, because everything feels important. But to a stranger, none of it is important yet.
The 8-second window
When someone visits your site or hears your pitch, you get about 8 seconds of attention. In those 8 seconds, they need to answer three questions:
1. What is this? 2. Is it for me? 3. Why should I care?
If any one of those isn't answered, they leave. Not because they're not interested. Because they couldn't tell if they should be.
The reframe
Instead of explaining your product, explain your customer's life.
Don't say: "We built a platform that integrates with your existing tools to provide unified analytics."
Say: "You're probably pulling numbers from 3 different dashboards into a spreadsheet every Monday morning. We kill that spreadsheet."
The second version is about them. The first is about you. That's the entire difference.
The forwarding test
The ultimate test of clarity: can someone who heard your pitch explain it to a third person? If they can't, your message is too complex.
The best pitches are the ones your customers repeat without you in the room.
servo builds that repeatable message. 10 minutes of answering questions, and you get a pitch that strangers can repeat.
People also ask
- Nobody understands my business
- People don't get what my company does
- I can't explain my business clearly
- My company is too hard to explain
- How to make my business easier to understand
- People are confused about my product
- My elevator pitch doesn't work